7 News Belize

Inflation Down, GDP Too
posted (November 25, 2015)

Earlier we told you how unemployment is down to 10.2% for September – which is two percentage points lower than last year at the same time. But there were also other important figures coming out of today's 80-minute press conference held by the Statistical Institute of Belize. First off, inflation was down by 0.8%, imports were up by 3.5% and in the third quarter, the economy contracted, with GDP growth of negative 1%. Here's a full rundown:

Angelita Campbell - Statistician II, SIB

"The inflation rate for the month of October stands at a -0.8% and what that is simply saying is on average, prices are 0.8% lower that of last year."

"The food and all items had very minimal movement but when you take a closer look at the fuel index, we realise since the start of this year we had an increase of fuel prices up until around June then we start seeing a decline in the fuel prices."

"Within the food index we saw beef going up by roughly 29%. There was also an increase in pork, eggs and fruits. Those increases were offset by a decline of red kidney beans of roughly 32% also a decline in vegetables."

"We look again we see that roughly 24% increase in the price of beef, liquid petroleum declined roughly 27%. There is the carrot that went down by -8%, cabbage also went down by -7% roughly."

"If you look closely you realise that Punta Gorda and Dangriga had the inflation rate growing by 1.4% and 1.8% perceptively. That can be attributed to the highest increase recorded in those two areas of rental prices."

"Finally we'll be looking at the inflation rates in the region. Within the region we have Nicaragua recording the highest inflation rate of 0.4%, while we have El Salvador at a -1.1% and we have Belize in the middle of that of a -0.8%. Closer to home we have Mexico growing by 2.5% and Jamaica at 2%"

Stephanie Vasquez - Economic Statistics Unit

"In January to October of this year, Belize's imports were valued at 1.7 billion dollars, up 3.1% or 51.4 million from January to October of last year."

"Importation of machinery and transport equipment was the greatest contributor to that increase as heighten purchases of transportation and farming equipment led to a 50 million dollar growth in that category. The manufactured goods category went up by 23 million dollars, largely due to tyre and steel purchases."

"In January to October of this year, Belize exports were valued at 477.2 million dollars, down 13.2% or 72.4 million dollars from the 549.6 million recorded for the same period."

"Major contributors to change in exports included a 55.4 million drop on crude petroleum earnings. Marine exports fell by 15.7 million dollars, as shrimp sales declined by 24% within the period January to October; additionally citrus fell by 6.8 million dollars, as orange concentrate exports dropped by 8%. Contrastingly sugar's performance has been a strong one, increasing by 11.2 million dollars; a notable 10% growth over the same period last year."

Jefte Ochaeta - Statistician I

"For the third quarter of the year production of goods and services there has been an increase fell by 1% and for the months of January to September, there has been an increase of 1.2% in total goods produced and services in the country."

"We've observed that fishing, fishing which dropped by 25.9 million compared to 2014 had the highest contribution towards the decrease in the economy. Likewise, agriculture also contributed to the decrease in the economy registering a 6.4 median decrease."

"Banana was down by almost three thousand tons, the main reason is because the year was a dry year and that affected the maturity of plants thus we have less production."

"Construction increased by 10%, we observed this increase when investigating we also found out that there is a correlation between loans that are given by banks towards construction, for construction purposes; those increase by 8%. More people are accessing finance for construction activities. This is interesting, we had 2,000 gallons less of rum production for this year; however that doesn't mean that we are not producing more rum. For the previous months we had an increase in rum production, so I am assuming that it's because these companies have in stock, that's why the decrease of production for this portion of the year. The same patterns were observed for beer where we had a decrease of 14%.

"Hotel and restaurants decrease decreased by 2%. There was a decrease in cruise visitors of 10% and overnight visitors increase by 7%. However it's notable that this 10% decrease in cruise ship visitors represents 17,000 less persons arriving to Belize for the month of July to September."

You can find all the figures at SIB.ORG.BZ .

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